02-05-18 An Early Morning Surprise

I can’t remember the last time that we woke up during the week to the sun already peaking above the horizon. No, we get up when it is dark, very dark. It’s difficult to get three sleepy kids moving in the morning without the promise of sunlight to convince them it is in fact morning. Every morning without fail, Baby E tries to convince me that it is still the middle of the night, and while my sleepy eyes and tired mind want nothing more than to crawl back into bed, the rest of me pushes through and gets us ready to go.

This morning, Baby E was talking to me on his bed in the dark corner of the basement. I could make out his figure, but it took a few minutes for my eyes to adjust to be able to see his face. Confused by what I saw, I walked to his bed and turned on the lights. All around his mouth, there was a dark, crumb-like substance. He looked at me, chatting away about it being dark, and the only thing I could do was stare at his mouth. What is going on? What happened?

It looked like he had gotten up in the middle of the night and found a chocolate cookie and proceeded to devour it, leaving the crumbs and slobber on his face. But that didn’t seem right because the cookies are out of his reach and it isn’t the type of thing he would ever do. I asked him if he had eaten anything and he insisted that he did not.

And that’s when I remembered that he had woken us up in the middle of the night. He had rolled off of his bed, and his subsequent screaming had brought both Tim and I to his bed to find him lying on the floor. We scooped him up, cuddled with him, and got him back into his bed. He cried for a little while, but quickly drifted back to sleep. What we hadn’t noticed was that he apparently hit his lip pretty good, and after he had fallen asleep and we had made our way back to our bed, his lip had bled all over his face and some on his pillow. The poor kid was a mess. When we realized what it was, we got a warm, wet towel and cleaned him off, only to find he did indeed have an impressively busted lip. I felt so guilty that I hadn’t noticed, but his bed is in a very dark corner, and he had calmed down rather quickly, so it never occurred to me to look for blood. He’s fine today. His lip is swollen and scraped, but it doesn’t seem to be bothering him at all, even when he is eating, so that’s good news.

Tonight I lined the floor with a very thick pile of blankets, so if he manages a repeat, at least there will be significant padding to cushion his fall!